August 22, 2003 (person)

Today, along with my paycheck I recieved another letter. It was polite, yet to the point. "Due to economic conditions and labor requirements" I was being laid off.

So now, I don't have a job. Oh, I wasn't alone. My company laid off sixty other people, and more will follow next week. In construction, you are always working yourself out of a job. When the building is finished, you leave. In my case, I just finished training the owners of a new school on the central and local sound systems when the news came. My work is done, so am I.

I can't say I didn't see it coming. My company has not been winning many bids in the past year. In fact, we got only one, and it was a small project, and already nearly done. We have six projects all finishing at the same time. I'm not the first person to go, not nearly. I have been thinking about this day for a long time. But no matter what, it still came as shock, and it hurt. I'd been a good electrician, reliable, I worked overtime when asked and my work doesn't need to be redone. I always plan ahead, something many electricians don't do. But in the end, it didn't matter. When I finished, so did my job.